Slayers Seconds
by Tiamat42
Summary: Lina’s children are growing up and ready for adventure, but it’s not happening. Well, when people are bored and secrets need to be cracked, who better to force the point than Xellos? Life is about to get interesting.
1. The Noodle Book

1 – The Noodle Book

"Dragon lung, dragon liver, dragon lice...dragons have lice?" I stopped, looking up from the book I was skimming, trying to imagine the kind of parasites that would have the gall to live off a dragon. Then I shook my head and peered back at the page. "Argh! This isn't a spell book! It's an ingredient book!"

I shoved the book back onto the shelf with such force it pushed the ladder I was standing on away from the wall. It clattered to the floor, leaving me clinging to the edge of the shelf by my fingertips. "Ack! Gary! Help!" I shrieked.

My name is Lira. Lira Gabriev, but most of the people in town call me Lira Inverse, after my mother. I think they can't get the rhythm of it out of their heads. I'm fourteen, nearly fifteen, and studying to be a sorceress. That is, if I could find the right spell.

"Coming!" I heard the voice from behind a stack of books across the room. That's Gary, my brother. He's sixteen. Yes, our parents were really trying to confuse someone when they named us. It's the type of people they are.

My brother leapt over the stack with typical grace and caught me just as I fell. Gary's strong for his age. "Geez, Lira," he said, setting me down. "Why didn't you just levitate?"

I hadn't thought of that.

"Um," I covered quickly. "The wind generated by a levitation spell would have blown these books all over the place, and then we'd _really_ have a mess on our hands."

Gary looked around at the stacks of unshelved books and misplaced papers sitting around the library. "Point, but shouldn't we clean up the mess we _have_ made before mom gets home? We're going to be in big trouble if she finds it like this."

"We've got time," I brushed him off. Gary's such a worrier. "I'm not quitting until I find the Dragon Slave! I know she's hidden it around here somewhere." I stalked back to the shelf I'd been looking at before and righted the ladder. "Cooking sounds just about right."

"Why don't you just take mom's word for it that we're not ready?" Gary urged, even as he started looking through the books opposite me.

"Maybe _you're_ not ready," I said, reaching for a book just out of my reach. Concentrating briefly, I made it slide off the shelf and into my hand. "But I am. I know it. Mom knows it. I just don't know why she won't teach me. I think she'd just so proud of being the youngest sorceress to cast such-and-such a spell that she doesn't want to see me beat her." I tossed the book over my shoulder, where it smacked Gary on the head.

"Ow! Lira!" he yelled. I ignored him.

"But I'll do it, she'll see. I _can_ do it. All I need is...the book!" I grabbed another one off the shelf and glanced at it. _A Thousand and One Uses for Egg Noodles_. I sighed and started to put it back when a tingle ran up my arm. I looked at the book again, then opened to a couple of random pages. They were full of noodles. I frowned and closed it again, staring at the cover. The longer I stared, the more that collection of noodles, right in the center, looked like...

"Gary! Lira! We're back!" A familiar voice echoed from the hallway. I jumped and hurriedly put the book back. I scrambled down the ladder and pulled it to the other side of the library.

"What are you doing?" Gary whispered. "There's no way we can clean this up before they..."

"I'll explain later!" I snapped. "Just get away from that shelf!"

"Huh?" Gary can be a bit dense sometimes, but he trusts me. He left the cooking section and pretended to look at some other books when my mother burst into the room.

"Lira Larenia Inverse Gabriev, _what_ do you think you're doing?" Notice she automatically figured we'd be doing something _wrong_ in the library. Also notice she automatically yelled at me and not Gary. Also notice my full name. Now forget it. That's an order.

"Nothing, mom," Gary immediately tried to cover for us. "We were looking for a form book so we could practice our fighting later." He held up a book from the shelf he was looking at. It said _Ted the Cat Meets Bill the Rat_. I looked at the shelf behind him. The rest of the books were on swordplay. I slapped my forehead. "And, um, doing a bit of reorganizing while we were at it," he tried to fix his mistake. "This place is a mess."

"It wasn't before!" My mother snapped, unfooled. "I knew _exactly_ where everything was!" She stepped into the middle of the room and raised her hands. The books we'd piled on the floor rose into the air and began reshelving themselves in rapid succession. She reached out and snatched one out of the air as it sailed by.

"_The Forgotten Spells of the Fifth Age_," she read, then grabbed another. "_Black Magic, a Comparative Study. Lost Enchantments. Expert Casting for Dummies._" One by one the titles broke down our ruse. My mother's eyes snapped back and pinned me down. "What do _these_ have to do with swords?"

"Er...they were misfiled under weapons of mass destruction?" I tried. I heard Gary snicker behind me, but my mother was not amused.

"Go to your room," she said angrily. "Both of you."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sat on my bed, kicking the box bitterly. I was so _close_. I could hear my mother's voice occasionally raised from Gary's room next door, but not enough to understand what she was saying. I hoped he'd be smart enough not to tell her we'd been looking at the cooking books. Otherwise, she might move it and it would take forever to find again. I heard Gary's door shut and footsteps approach my own. I steeled myself.

Let me clarify something before you get the wrong impression. My mother is not a perpetually angry raging maniac on a twenty-four seven basis. Only twenty-three. No, I don't mean that either. She's actually pretty level for a woman who has to deal with two run-amok sorcerous children. I think she does a pretty good job most of the time.

Not, mind you, that I'd admit this to her.

My mother, the great Lina Inverse, slayer of dragons, defeater of the great Shabranigdo, Dark Star, Dragon King Gaav, Hellmaster Phibrizzo, and countless other demons and monsters of all shapes and sizes, peered around my door.

"And now," she said ruefully. "Comes the hard part."

It worked. I laughed. My mother smiled and came the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind her. "Lira," she said more seriously. "What are you trying to prove?"

That caught me off guard. I had been expecting her to yell at me for messing around in the library, ask me what I was looking for, already know what I was going to say, tell me again that I wasn't ready for it, and then set me to some hated chore for the rest of the week for disobeying her. Instead she was asking me a question in that tone of voice that meant she wanted a real answer.

Not answering a question like that would be worse than anything I could have done in the library.

"I...I wanted to prove that I could be just as good as you." I know, it sounds horribly over used, but it's the truth, and my mother knew it at once. She smiled at me.

"I'm not going to yell at you. I just got enough guilt out of your brother for the pair of you and don't really need any more," she explained. "I know what you were doing, and now I know why, so I'm going to explain something to you instead.

"Lira, a spell like the Dragon Slave takes a lot of control, a lot of power, and most of all, a lot of restraint. It took me a long time to learn that. When to use it, when not to. When I was young I just ran around aimlessly, going everywhere, doing everything I wanted."

"Capturing thieves and killing bandits," I helped her along.

"Heh, that's right," she grinned in remembrance. "I thought it was a great way to test my abilities and, yes, show off. I wanted to be the best sorceress in the world, and I wanted everyone to know it. I used that spell too much. Irresponsibly. But as I got older, I realized something. If I was going to be the best sorceress in the world...I would have to be the _best_ sorceress in the _world_."

I shook my head, not getting it. She continued. "It means taking care of the things that other people can't do. If you want to learn the most powerful spell in black magic," and here she caught my eyes again. "You're going to have to be prepared to _use_ it."

I stared at her. Then it clicked. Sort of. "I think I understand."

She sat back, looking a little sad, though I didn't know why. The room was silent for a while. Outside, a bird twittered loudly, telling the world what a good singer he was. My mother smiled slightly. "Well?" she asked.

"What?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Which book was it?"

My own eyes widened. "I don't..." I started, then stopped. There's really no fooling Lina Inverse. "The noodle book."

My mother nodded and stood up. It was always hard to tell when I'd actually won something with her, but this time I think I did. "Don't look for it again," she said.

"I won't," I assured her, and was surprised to find that I meant it.


	2. The Weird Person

2 – The Weird Person

The next day I found myself on shopping duty, which I hate. Gary was stuck at home cleaning, which _he_ hates. In other words, we were still in trouble. I, however, had a lot to think about, so the walk into the village with money in my pouch wasn't nearly as boring as it usually was.

I waved to the people I knew as I headed for the market. Some of them waved back. Some of them called out things for me to tell my parents, which I immediately forgot. One of them just gave me a dirty look and went back to fixing the awning above his store.

"Hello, Mr. Sandleton," I said, walking deliberately over to him, just to see what kind of reaction I could get. I wasn't disappointed. He jumped and nearly fell off his ladder.

"Lira!" he yelled, regaining his balance. "How dare you show up here again after the other day! You little hellion! My store is not for target practice! If I'd wanted it to be target practice, I'd have painted circles on it! Understand? I'll have a word with your parents about this!"

I smiled and nodded. "Yes, of course, Mr. Sandleton. It _is_ lovely weather lately, isn't it? See you later!" I waved and walked away, listening to the fading sounds of his protests behind me.

"Don't you run away from me, young lady! I'll have reparations for this, I will! And tell your brother and his crazy friends that my roof is not a trampoline! Understand? Are you listening to me?" I giggled to myself. I'd already told my mother about the accident with the store, and didn't have many worries on that account. She didn't like Sandleton much anyway.

The village of Lemm was not very big, and it didn't take me long to reach the marketplace proper. Right at the start of the store-lined street I turned off into a small side alley. Just as I thought, there were three guys occupying it.

"Oh great, it's Lira," one of them said. Another one kicked him and turned to me. "What's up?" he said with forced politeness.

These are my brother's friends. Their names are Ron, Ben and Brad, but they call themselves Red, Blue and Black. Along with Gary, who just calls himself Gary though they keep pushing for Green, they're Lemm's wild crowd. So to speak. Personally, I can cause more damage in five minutes than they can in an entire week. For that matter, so can Gary, but he never uses magic around them. They're a sword-and-fist type crew.

"Just thought I'd tell you that Gary won't be down today. He's too busy to play with you."

Let me get something straight. I think these guys are morons. They run around, trying to act tough and intimidate people in a village with a big enough population to maybe fill a small pond. If it wasn't very deep. They're not very good at it, and mostly they just hang around and play fake gambling games. Still, it's not their incompetence that I hate them for, it's for the stupid way my brother acts when he's around them. This is why I had no qualms abut telling them he'd ditched them for a day.

"Oh?" Black snickered. "What'd you guys do this time?"

For morons, though, sometimes they can be depressingly on-target.

"Why, we learned a brand-new spell," I lied. "Want to see?" I raised a hand and pointed at Red. He ducked. I laughed and left the alley, glad to still be on top of the pecking order. Only then did I look at my shopping list. First thing seemed to be noodles. I wondered if I was supposed to take a hint.

Instead I took a walk. To the general store. Then the butcher, then the carpenter to check on the progress of a cabinet my father had ordered. Then the dress shop, the candle maker's, and the bakery. Finally, I headed for the fruit and vegetable stand. Their wares tended to go bad if I carried them around in the sun too long, so I did them last.

I was peering at a set of apples, the rest of my purchases levitating in the air behind me, when a voice spoke from just over my shoulder. "You should try the cucumbers, they're perfect this week."

Okay, I have to admit it, I jumped. Several of my packages slipped out of my control and hit the ground as I spun around with a fireball at the ready. The person behind me had the decency to look as surprised as I was.

"Lira, I assume? Lira Gabriev?" he asked. That should have been a warning sign right there. Everyone in the village called me Lira Inverse. I, however, wasn't looking for warning signs.

I was looking at the young man standing behind me. He looked to be about Red's age with short, maybe purple, maybe black hair, and he was dressed really weird. I know, I know, my mom dresses weird. Heck, _I_ dress weird, but that doesn't mean I'm not in a position to recognize weird on other people.

This guy was wearing mostly black, including a full length cape, in stiflingly hot summer weather. The clasp had gems on it. He was also carrying a staff, with a shining red jewel at the top of it.

I couldn't take my eyes off that thing. After a minute I realized I still hadn't answered him, I was staring like a slack-jawed idiot, and that my fireball was dangerously close to burning my fingers.

"Um...yes?" I stammered, quickly shaking off the fireball and gathering up my fallen bags along with what remained of my dignity.

"I thought it must be," he continued, unfazed. I carefully re-levitated my things.

"Do I know you?" I asked finally.

"No," he said, and smiled. "Would you look at these turnips, they're practically rotten." He tsked loudly. "You _must_ demand a discount." He held up a bundle of roots. I examined them politely.

"Yes, yes they are," I shook my head slightly. I was feeling a bit dizzy.

Probably too much sun.

I paid for the vegetables and started to walk away. After a moment I realized the young man was following me. No, walking _with_ me and I hadn't even noticed him come up. "Um, um...thanks for the advice about the turnips," I said, stupidly.

"Not a problem," he replied. "I'm always ready to help a friend. Or the daughter of one."

I stared at him. "You know my mother?" That _would_ explain the strange attire.

"Oh yes. How is she?"

"Fine. Just fine. Doesn't get around much anymore, I'm sure she'd love to see an old friend. We live in the big house up on the hill just outside of town."

"I see. Maybe I will stop by. How many children does Lina have now?"

"Just the two of us. My older brother Gary and I."

"I see," he said again. "And are you both...talented?"

"Talented?" I repeated.

"You know," he waved his free hand at my floating baggage.

"Oh! Magic! Yes. Yes we are, though I think I'm a bit better than Gary, you see..." I stumbled suddenly, tripping over an upturned cobblestone. The young man caught my arm to steady me.

"Are you feeling all right? You look a bit...tired."

"Ah, well, that is," I looked around and spotted a bench under some trees in the square. It had shade. "I think I'll sit down."

He helped me to sit, solicitously. "Better?"

I looked up, caught sight of that red jewel again, and the sunlight refracted straight into my eyes. I blinked and rubbed at them. "Yeah. Just a little too much sun."

"Perhaps I could help you home? Your parents might get worried."

"No, no, it's fine," I reassured him. "I'll be better in a minute. They won't care, they'll just assume that I'm...talking to someone."

He nodded sagely and leaned against a tree, watching me. "Well, that you are," he said, and ironically fell silent. I stared at the pattern the leaves made with the shadows. I don't know what caught my attention but I looked up just before he spoke again.

"Lira," he said conversationally. "Did you never wonder about your _real_ mother?"

"What?" I said. I heard the words but they didn't mean anything.

"Lina...has a secret," he said, with a sort of half-smile. "You should ask her about it sometime."

"What secret?" I asked, frowning.

"Well, if I told you, it wouldn't be a secret, now would it?" He winked. A moment later I looked up again and only the shadows of leaves and stray sunbeams looked back. I stared at the empty space for a minute, then shook my head violently. It stayed empty.

After another minute I picked up my bags and walked home.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn't until dinner that night that I remembered the encounter. I was eating as much as I possibly could, as fast as I could, lest it all disappear into certain other peoples' stomachs, and inevitably this led to me choking. I grabbed my cup and chugged down the water, then refilled it from the pitcher.

The flow of water from the spout looked an awful lot like the shadows of leaves.

"Mom!" I said suddenly. "I met a weird person in the village today."

"A weird person?" repeated my mother, like she didn't hear me the first time. Actually, she probably didn't, she'd been busy trying to steal my dad's noodles while he wasn't looking.

"Yes," I said, trying to ignore the fact that she'd dripped sauce all down her shirt. She always yells at _me_ for that. "He showed up out of nowhere and followed me all over town."

"I thought I told you what to do to people like that," my mother squared off a target on the opposite wall. "Boom! Turns them right off."

"Not that kind of weird, mom," I sighed as I reached for another piece of chicken. "I mean he kept asking me questions. Well, first he just made suggestions on what vegetables to buy, but after a while he started asking about you. And about me, and even Gary. He said some strange things, like..." I trailed off, realizing for the first time how ridiculous it all sounded.

"Like what?" My mother waved a chicken leg at me. "Don't be too vague, dear, your father can't take it."

"Huh?" My father looked up, taking an interest in the conversation for the first time. I winced, mentally. I had just figured out several different ways that my next sentence could be insulting to the occupants of the room. I took a deep breath.

"He said that you had a secret, that you weren't my real mother and didn't I ever wonder about it?" I let it out in a rush and got ready to duck.

To my surprise, no flaming balls of death turned our furniture into ash. My mother sat there, her fork halfway to her mouth, and did nothing more threatening than set it down with a slightly-louder-than-usual clink. Then she looked at my father with one of those meaningful adult glances, which he completely failed to pick up on.

Instead, he laughed loudly. "That's silly, Lira. Of course you're our child. I was there, you know." He nodded sagely. "Right, Lina?"

My mother's eye twitched slightly. "Gourry, dear..." she started, then visibly restrained herself, turning to me instead. "What did this person look like?"

I gave a description as best I could. It was kind of patchy, as I couldn't actually remember all that well, but I tried. As I talked, a few things seemed to leap out of a red haze and collide in the back of my mind. He'd said he was a friend of my mother's, but he looked far too young to be her age. He'd never even told me his name, but I'd answered his questions as easily as if I'd been...hypnotized.

I would never have been so stupid if I was in my right mind.

I tried to explain this, but as my string of half-finished sentences and self corrections stammered to a halt, I realized my mother had stopped listening a long time before.

"Xellos," she said calmly, then stood up so fast her chair hit the floor behind her. "He's dead. This time, he's dead." She turned and stalked out of the room, letting the door slam shut behind her.

"Xellos?" I said, trying out the name in the dead silence that followed. My father turned back from staring at the door and looked at me. Suddenly his expression brightened as if he'd just got an idea, and fell just as quickly. Then he too stood up and left, a little more quietly.

I waited for a few minutes. Nothing exploded, so I reached over and dumped the rest of the noodles onto my plate, then glanced at Gary to see what he thought of all this. He continued to eat calmly, occasionally drinking from the glass next to him. When his plate was clean he set his fork down carefully and looked up at me.

"Well," he said. "That should give them enough of a head start. Shall we go see where they went?"

Gary and I reached the village from the side and crept in between two buildings. Immediately three figures greeted us. "Hey! Gary, I thought you weren't going to show up today." Blue glared at me as if I'd been deliberately lying to him. I ignored it.

"Have you seen our mom?" I asked.

"Yeah, she's down in the square, yelling at a tree or something." Blue snickered, and I saw Gary cringe in embarrassment.

"Uh, we'll just go...see what's up," he said and grabbed my hand, dragging me towards the square. The color trio followed.

We heard our mother long before we could see her. She was standing at almost the exact place I had been sitting, and yes, she was yelling at the tree.

"Xellos! You come out _right_ now! I know you're around here somewhere. Come out! Do you hear me?" She kicked the tree explosively. People were starting to gather around, looking amused. My mother didn't notice. She was looking around, as if trying to see the invisible. Which, I guess, she was.

"Come out!" she yelled again. "You're not going to mess with this! You've messed with my friends, you've messed with my enemies, you've messed with my life, but you are _not_, I repeat, _NOT_ going to mess with my family! Understand? If I _ever_ see your perpetually irritating little visage around here again, I'll blow you into so many different dimensions you'll be hunting pieces for millennia! _Do you understand?_" With that final shriek, she wore down, leaning against the tree and panting. The crowd, figuring the show was over, began to disperse. Behind me, someone snickered.

"Your mom's finally lost it, eh, Lira?" Red commented. I turned on him.

"Shut up! Just shut up when you don't know what you're talking about!"

I know that made no sense, but I was busy being freaked out right then. Obviously, I'd had an encounter with one of my mother's old enemies, and it scared me. I really couldn't say why, but it did.

My father suddenly appeared from where he'd obviously been looking in a side street. He shook his head and shrugged. My mother started talking to him, but quietly, so we couldn't hear, though she kept waving her arms in expansive gestures. Finally, he nodded and gestured back up the hill towards our house. They began walking slowly back. I watched them go, lost in my own thoughts, until Gary touched my arm and made me jump.

"Lira? Shouldn't we um...book it?" he suggested.

I blinked. "Oh...crap!" I push the color trio out of the way and ran for the house, with Gary right behind me.

We were terribly out of breath by the time we got there, but we managed to beat our parents. By the time we saw them coming up the path, we were already in control of both our expressions and our oxygen intake. "So..." I said as they reached the front porch. "What was that all about?"

My father shrugged, patted me on the head, and went inside. My mother however, stopped as she passed me, and turned, laying a hand on my shoulder.

"Tomorrow," she said, staring hard at me. "I'm going to teach you the Dragon Slave. And if you see that man again, you're to hit him with everything you have."


	3. The Disappearing Act

3 – The Disappearing Act

The next morning dawned bright and clear. Well for me it didn't so much dawn as afternoon. The sun was quite high by the time I rolled out of bed and nearly did the same down the stairs, yawning loudly. Down the hall, Gary's door was open and the bed already made. I glanced at my parents' door, which was still closed, and sighed. Sleeping late ran in the family about as well as appetite. The only one who didn't have it was my brother. What a freak.

The breakfast table was empty, but I saw a plate piled high at one end, glowing slightly under a preservation spell. A note next to it read '_Gone down to town, saved you some food. –Gary_'. I smiled, broke the spell, and dug in.

Only after a sufficient amount of food had restored my thinking processes and I was about to start on the pile of dishes did I stop to...well, think. Then I remembered; today we were supposed to learn the Dragon Slave.

Today we were going to learn the spell I'd been waiting for my whole life, and Gary had gone to town like it was any other day. Today I was promised the ultimate black magic, and my parents were still sleeping like they had all the time in the world. Today, the day when the house should have been alive with beautiful explosions, it was silent as an airless tomb.

I threw my plate and cutlery at the sink, just to make some noise. It clattered and caused a chain reaction that made the entire precarious stack tumble to the floor with a crash. After the echoes had faded, I waited. Nothing happened. Not a peep from my parents' room. I frowned and waved at the dishes. They repiled themselves with enough clanking to wake a dead dragon.

Still nothing.

Stomping my feet, I stormed over to their door and knocked loudly. "Mom! Dad! Come on! Wake up already! Humans aren't meant to be nocturnal!" When no groggy reply was forthcoming, I gave up and pushed the door open. "Mom, come on, you _promised_..." I whined, and froze.

The room was a mess. No, that is an understatement for better times. It was _destroyed_. The bed had been slashed in two and the stuffing had settled over it. The end tables and shelves were in little splintery pieces all over the room. The lamp had fallen and the oil was pooling towards a dent in the floor. There were nine torn pages of a book floating around, six burn marks on the walls, four sections of missing paint, one chunk of wood fallen from the ceiling, five torn shirts, two pairs of pants, seven...

My mind continued to catalogue the damage as my hand slipped nervelessly from the doorknob and I sat down hard. Collision with the floor jolted my brain and brought the most important piece of information to the forefront; _there were no bodies_.

Five seconds later, I slammed out the front door and ran full tilt down the hill. Four more after that I hit a rock and sent myself sprawling in the path. Three after _that _I scrambled to my feet, two, shouted "_Ray wing!_" and one, sped towards town like a Lira-class rocket.

I fell into the town square like said rocket running out of fuel and stumbled towards the closest alley, barely noticing the whispers and stares that followed me. Inside the alley, four pairs of eyes glanced up from the dice.

"Gary!" I ran towards him, unable to keep the tears from my eyes anymore. "They're gone! Gone!" I flung myself at him and sobbed on his shirt.

"Lira?" he sounded understandably confused. "Lira! What's wrong? Hey? Talk to me."

I regained my voice after a couple of tries. "Mom and dad, they're gone. The room's been torn apart, and they're gone...and...and, it was _him_! I know it!" I slammed a fist into Gary's chest, which he stoically ignored. "It was him, the weird guy from the market, the one with the vegetable fixation, _he _did it and _I_ told him. I told him where we lived and who we were and how to get there and to drop by some time and I answered all his _stupid_ questions and now he's _done_ something to them and they're _gone_...and I'm going to _kill_ him!" I screamed the last line, ran out of air, and started crying again.

Gary took me by the shoulders and shook me a little. "Lira, calm down. Come on, let's go home. Can you hear me? I'm sure it's fine. Come on," he kept talking. His voice was shaking, but I knew he could tell I was hysterical, and so was trying to be the practical one for my benefit. Somehow, this realization calmed me faster than anything he said. I nodded, finally, wiping my eyes. Gary took my hand and we were about to levitate home when Red latched on to us.

"Hey," he said. "Take us with you. In case it's dangerous."

Gary nodded, and I couldn't care enough to care, if that makes any sense, so the five of us rode a giant bubble back to the house. It was still there, sitting on the hill, surrounded by gently waving trees, and absolutely peaceful. We landed by the front door and walked inside. Gary immediately ran to our parents room and looked in. His friends followed.

"Oh sh..." Red started, just before Black kicked him. Gary only stared. For a _long _time. I walked up next to him and stared too. Finally the guys got uncomfortable and started looking around the house.

"I think we should look around outside. There might be...traces or something," Blue said. Gary turned around.

"Yeah, that would be good, but be careful."

The trio nodded, and left. I thought it was about as tactful as they were capable of being, and was impressed. Gary began to go over the room, looking for what, I don't know. I sat down on the floor in the hall and practiced being useless. Finally my brother emerged, shutting the door behind him.

"Nothing," he said. "And the rest of the house seems to be untouched. I'm just surprised we didn't wake up. That," he waved at the closed door. "Must have made a _ton_ of noise."

"That Xellos _thing_ is a magic-user," I hissed. "A sorcerer. He _has_ to be. A _good_ one."

Gary nodded. "Yeah." I waited. Gary didn't say anything else, and I could see his control slipping. I jumped in quickly. If my brother broke down, I was in serious trouble. I had to keep him talking. "What do you think we should do?"

"Obviously, we have to go after him," he said. "They're probably still alive, you know. No one would go through all that trouble to get them out of here just to kill them. So if we can find that Xellos guy, we'll find them."

"How?" I said despairingly. "There're no clues, I have no idea where he's gone, who he is, where he lives, how we can find him. Other than sitting here and _waiting_..."

"We won't do that. I was thinking as I searched the room. We_ do_ have a clue. Remember, you told me the night after you met him. He said 'Lina has a secret', something about your parentage, remember?"

"I don't believe any of that."

"Of course not, but it's a clue. Obviously he knew mom, or he never could have known enough to do something like this." Gary was pacing now, a habit he had while thinking hard. "So obviously he had a reason for making up something like that. Obviously he wanted to...disrupt our family somehow. Obviously it's all about something from the past."

"Gary, if you say obviously one more time, I'm going to fry you into the next continent."

"Sorry." He stopped pacing abruptly. "So who would be most likely to know about mom's past?"

"Dad," I said, irritably.

"Don't be obtuse, Lira, this is serious," Gary snapped.

"Sorry. Sorry," I shook my head. "Mom's friends from her adventuring days. Amelia and Zelgadis. In...Seyruun." I stopped, looking up at him. "But that's...so far..." Gary nodded.

"But they're the ones who'll know. Plus, I'm sure they can help. And we've been to Seyruun before, remember? How hard can it be?"

"Last time I was nine! How much can _you_ remember? And we traveled in a carriage, and mom and dad were there. Do you even know the right road to _start_ on? Or how long it'll take? Or..."

"Lira, we have a library. There are _maps_. Seyruun's a big city, everyone can give us directions. Would you stop sulking and _think_ for a minute?"

I opened my mouth to protest again, then shut it quickly. I _was_ sulking. I was mad at myself for ever talking to that guy, and I was sulking. I don't sulk. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm being an idiot."

"It's okay," Gary smiled at me, but before he could continue the front door burst open again and the color trio piled through.

"There's nothing outside," Black reported. "And we looked _everywhere_."

"I didn't think there would be," Gary said. "But thank you."

"We could stay here tonight," Red suggested. "Keep watch or something."

"Um, I don't think that would do much _good_," Blue spoke up hesitantly. "I mean, whatever it was took out _Lina Inverse_..."

"Yeah, though, someone _that_ strong wouldn't need to bother with _us_, so we're probably safe..." Black continued.

This was _so_ not helping.

Luckily, Gary jumped in again before I could yell at them. "Thanks, guys, but I've thought of something better for you to do. Lira and I are going to look for them, so we'll need some help."

"You want us to go with you?" Blue frowned. "I don't know if that's..."

"No, no, no," Gary interrupted. "But we want to go tomorrow, if possible, and that means we need a few things fast. Can you help me?"

"Of course," said Red.

"Yeah, this is rough. Anything I can do," agreed Black.

"Thanks," Gary turned to Blue. "Can you and Red run down to town and get us, say, a week's worth of traveling provisions?" He glanced at me and thought about it. "No, make that two weeks, or we'll run out after the first day." I was about to be insulted, but decided against it.

Gary turned to Black. "Your sister's not working right now, is she?" Black shook his head. "Good, can you and her watch the house while we're gone? I'll give you the keys. You don't have to clean that...mess...up or anything, just keep an eye on it, water the plants, you know."

"Of course. It'll be better than my place anytime." He watched Red and Blue scurry out the door before continuing. "And I'll make sure those two don't start any wild parties or anything in here while you're out, you know?"

"Thanks," Gary grinned. "That's why I asked you."

Black gripped his hand for a minute. "Hey, good luck. I hope you...well, you know." He waved and cleared out. Gary sighed and seemed to relax a little.

For the first time, I noticed how his whole voice, posture, and way of speaking had suddenly changed. He was with his stupid friends, but he wasn't being stupid. He was being...in charge. I suddenly felt a lot better, and realized it was high time I started helping.

"Okay," I said. "Now that they're gone...we should get packing. And I know something we should take."

"What?"

I looked blankly back at him, then let myself smile, slowly. "In the library."


End file.
